The Eyes of Madness
by Fractured Peace
Summary: Ahead of him, there was fire, warfare, and the steadily creeping darkness spurned by questions without answers. One day, Kefka would hear the call of magic and the screams of eternity, but that time did not come suddenly. With his life fading, Kefka's story flashes in a single instant as he peers beyond the eyes of madness. One-Shot.


((Wow, I can't believe this is finally up here! This project started as a way for me to get in character with Kefka, but quickly became something else. All in all, I've been working on this story for nearly three years. It's been rewritten and revised after every point in my evolution as a writer. I'd like to thank NaomiKindle whose review on another one of my stories motivated me to hurry up and finish this one. With that said, I hope you enjoy the ride through the dying subconscious of everyone's favorite madman, Kefka Palazzo.))

* * *

_**The Eyes of Madness**_

Kefka Palazzo was a god. Long ago, he'd once been a man, but that didn't matter much anymore. He had a wonderful tower, a whole host of loyal guardians, and a cult of worshippers that did whatever he wanted. Alone, on his tower, he had everything that a god could reasonably ask for, and yet, all in all, for some reason he just wasn't having the best day.

His troubles had started when a group of ragtag heroes had said they'd had enough of him. They said they were tired of him vaporizing cities and that they didn't like the zombie-filled wastelands he'd made on their world. Then they'd had the nerve to storm into his tower, kill all his pet monsters, and practically break down his door to say it all to his face! He'd even been nice enough to greet them, and still, all they'd done was _complain, complain, complain. _

About how the world was _worth _something.

About how they'd _rebuild._

"_I know what love is!"_

"_My family lives on inside me!"_

"_I have my friends here!"_

_Peace. Love. The powers of friendship._

They should write a self-help book.

He'd told them that.

They hadn't laughed for some reason.

Nor had they agreed that life was pointless. It was obvious, really. When everything was born, it was meant to die. And everything that was made would just get destroyed. So bothering with it all was a complete waste of time. People were as insignificant as ants beneath a magnifying glass! Or as meaningless as humans beneath his Light of Judgment. They were all the same really.

Yet here those heroes were in front of him. Face to face. And _Kept! Fucking! Stabbing him!_

"Ultima!"

The forces of gravity and the greater powers of the cosmos exploded in a bombshell of infinite darkness as the roaring powers of Ragnarok tore at his flesh. _Again._

Why couldn't he get away from the espers? He'd already used them! Done away with them! They were supposed to stop bothering him, but here they were. These little heroes had collected more magicite than he'd ever had. Alexander. Tritoch. _Holy freaking Ragnorok. _

Then there was the musclebound meathead that had decided it was a wonderful idea to punch a god in the face.

And that stupid king who'd somehow managed to pick up a chainsaw.

But the two he was _really _interested in, the two who _really _caught his attention, were the half-esper witch and the traitor.

One was a broken, half-beaten toy, and the other was a broken, half-beaten woman. One he'd taken over and played with, the other he could have sworn he'd killed. But the witch had run away and the traitor had stabbed him. In the stomach. It had hurt. But they didn't look so good now. Just one more hit and they'd be history.

A flash of light, a snatching hand, and Little Miss Ultima popped the lid off a bottle and downed an elixir in less than thirty seconds.

_Hey! That was cheating!_

Then she looked at him with that oh-so-righteous fury, outstretched her arms, and shouted:

"Ultima!"

His magic overloaded. It made him want to laugh. In fact, he did. He laughed as the magic burst from inside him and attacked his weakened body. The tower, no _the world_ was shaking, or was that just him? He laughed at it.

He fell apart, piece by piece, hovering above that tower. Dying. Why couldn't he laugh anymore? The colors faded. A dull, dull, dull, dull gray! The sound was gone. No screaming! No fear! Not even his own voice, cracking out like a whip in the ordered realms of sanity! He wanted to laugh! Not to cry, but to laugh and laugh and laugh while his flesh disintegrated and his vision cut to black…

_Hahaha! Haha. Ha…ha…_

* * *

'_What seems to be the problem, Palazzo?'_

Oh, I'm just floating around the edges of hell, probably. Never felt-.

'_This is confidential?'_

'_If there has been no substantial change then I see no reason why it would be released beyond the scientific community.'_

Wait? What was…?

'_This is impersonal, Kefka. Whatever you're feeling should be documented for the good of the Empire.'_

That conversation and then a surge of anger, a sea of words. His fist tightened.

'_I've been having…thoughts.'_

'_Thoughts?'_

'_They're…It's hard to explain. It's like I can't control them. I don't even know what they are sometimes, just that…I want to do something. Strange things.'_

Yes. Strange things. Like fire and murder, the end of the world.

'_You've been having impulses?'_

'_I guess…'_

'_Are you having one right now?'_

Yes.

'_Kefka?'_

'_No.'_

* * *

The darkness changed, a subtle nuance, but instantly more physical. Not blindness, but a lack of light. He felt arms, legs, a body pressed against the not uncomfortable thickness of cloth. He was wrapped in it like a funeral shroud. His hands were freezing. A corpse's hands.

Someone knocked on the door. He turned his head and a dull light touched his eyes. Darkened shapes, blurry in a haze of blue and gray: a desk, a dresser, a bookshelf. The curtains had been drawn. His head pounded

"What?"

"General Palazzo?" The door opened a sliver. Light flooded the room and scorched his retinas.

"Ugh!" He raised a hand and shielded his eyes. "Go away!"

"The Emperor's called for you. You're to report to the-."

"Do you think I care?"

"-immediately. He'd like to remind you that if you feel too unwell to report then you should document your symptoms with-."

"Just shut up already!"

"-And as you have missed the last three meetings he'd like to remind you that his patience can only stretch so far if you refuse to cooperate with imperial authority."

"Leave me alone!" His hand jerked as though throwing a dagger. The door burst into flames. The metal didn't burn, of course, but grew hot, too hot for any lapdog peon to touch. The surprise alone was enough to send the little worm shrieking and running. Kefka thrust his head back into his pillow again.

His vision faded in a swathe of feathers and cloth.

* * *

"He's disturbed, I think. They did something to him and now…"

"Just look at him. He's dangerous. You know, the other day, I heard he-…"

"Blew up the entire west hall?"

"Apparently some poor kid came knocking and, well…There's not much left of him."

"What happened to him?"

"To Palazzo? Not much. It was a war orphan so no one went looking for the kid. They scolded him a bit for the damages, I think, but other than that…"

"How does he get away with it?"

"They feel bad for him, probably. They turned him into this, didn't they? If they just got rid of him, what would people say?"

"It's sad."

"The poor boy."

"If they hadn't been meddling in magic and espers, none of this would have happened."

"It's criminal."

"If only they hadn't been meddling…If only…"

* * *

"Kefka."

_(Huuuh…?)_

"Kefka Palazzo."

_(What do you want?)_

Something touched his shoulder.

He sat up straighter, faster than he should have and knocked his head into something hard. A burst of pain split over his right eye and he slapped his palm over the wound. "Son of a-!" The room blinked into focus. A harsh medical light over his head, some fluorescents above that.

"Are you alright?"

And some empty-headed intellectual. Staring him over and prodding at him with stupid sticks and machines and meters. '_Fucking Hell…'_

"Fucking hell…" he groaned, rubbing at the place where he could feel blood. "What in the name of Shiva…?"

"Shiva's about right," the patronizing, egg-headed little worm said. When Kefka only blinked at him, he gestured towards the wound. "Your hands."

Kefka removed his hands and looked down at them. Frozen into blocks. '_Huh. Well that's different.'_

"They're ice-packs!" he said.

"I'm sure."

"The best kind! Esper-approved."

"Hm…" The doctor lowered himself into a nearby chair. He didn't look particularly remarkable, but that didn't altogether surprise him. Kefka hadn't seen anyone important, let alone that raincoat-wearing freak, in months. You get one teensy, tiny little urge to break a man's neck and suddenly everyone starts avoiding you…

"Kefka?"

"Huh?"

"Were you listening?"

"Yeah, sure. 'Blah Blah Stop being crazy Blah.'"

"This isn't funny, Kefka."

"Oh really? Because it's _hilarious_ to me." He laughed a little just to prove it. It was a cold, unnatural laugh, forced but completely unrestrained. Dark. A little unhinged. He never knew if he'd laugh or just start yelling. Either worked. Both made people give him the same look and leave him very, very much alone.

But this medic didn't seem affected much. He just waited, like a parent watching a child scream.

"Do you remember what happened?"

"Huh?"

"What _happened_, Kefka. Do you know why you're here?"

Kefka stopped and thought about that. What _did_ he remember last? Well, he'd been in his room. He remembered that. The curtains had been drawn and…

He'd been in one of _those_ moods, hadn't he? It had been dark and he'd just laid there for hours. His thoughts…They never were as sharp and, well, _normal _as they'd once been, but they weren't usually slow. _These_ thoughts...They'd _drip _along. They were liquid, oozing like sludge slowly slipping from the ceiling. A haze of darkness over an all-embracing _nothing_.

"Kefka?"

Death and life and nothing. They were all the same, really. What did it matter if he was respected or not? If he served the Emperor or laid there all day? If he lived or…?

"I asked if you remembered. Do you know why you're here?"

"Yeah," he said, "Yeah, I remember. So why don't you get out of my face so I can-."

"Then I'd like you to answer some questions, if you would."

"And I'd like you to get out of my face so I can get the hell out of here."

"Kefka, I'm-."

"'_Kefka, I'm-!'_" Kefka thrusted out with his boots and planted them directly in the man's chest. The wheeled chair went spinning across the room and toppled over into a nearby wall, the medic toppling with it. Kefka pushed up from his patient's chair and perched on the side, tilting on his heels like a bird before hopping down. He then strode calmly into the hallway, ignoring the sudden blare of an alarm as he kicked open what had been a locked, even bolted door.

(…_Unstable…Something went wrong…He's..)_

_(…Tried again…Took three hours to revive him…Lost too much blood…)_

_(This has to stop, Palazzo. You can't keep…Going to hurt yourself…)_

_(…Better him than someone else…I say if he wants to try, let him.)_

_(…What's happening to me…?)_

* * *

Alone. Finally alone. Why wouldn't those idiots leave him alone anymore? He hated them. All of them. Why did they have to…?

Light streamed in through the window, mostly gray from metal and pollution. Metal towers and metal walkways. Gunmetal gray. Everywhere, gray…

He scowled and turned away. Stupid. Why couldn't he be left alone? He was fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine…

He caught a movement in the mirror. A face. Gray.

He used to spend nearly an hour making himself look professional and capable before he could face the world. He'd hated the youth of his face, the inexperience it betrayed. He'd worked to hide the tell-tale signs of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. Now he looked somewhere around thirty. His eyes were tired, hollow, and reddened as though irritated. His hair had grown unruly and lank. He seemed to blend into his gray background. Washed-out.

'_Pathetic.'_

In his mind's eye, he saw it: green, blue, white, yellow. And red. He'd rather taken to red.

The image changed.

The brush angled strangely in his hand. He brought it clumsily across his eye, and it streaked in blue. He couldn't help but grin a little. It wasn't like the subtle tones he'd seen on the women of Jidoor or any other ridiculous worshippers of fashion. This was straight blue, vibrant and primary like the paint on his palette. He'd used too much, but he kind of liked it. Here was the mad man with one blue eye. Well, that had to be corrected.

He dipped the brush in the paint again and spread it across the other to match.

Much better.

* * *

The Emperor was surprised when Kefka showed up to one of the old meetings.

Kefka came in the late afternoon, nearly two hours after the meeting began, and when the guards at the doors turned him away, he just pushed them to the side and walked in anyway. There were five of them around the old meeting table, and each and every one of them looked up the moment he opened the door. There was a hushed silence at first, and Leo even grabbed for his sword.

Hilarious. Kefka could have killed all of five of them in a minute if he'd wanted to.

"Didn't mean to interrupt, but I had nothing better to do, so…"

"Kefka?"

"Do I look like someone else? I got tired of frying your messenger boys."

"What are you _wearing?_"

Colors. More than anyone else in this depressing city. And it had taken _so _long! He'd had to search the market with the _normal _people until he'd found anything eye-catching. Silk scarves in stripes of yellow and green. Tiny paint palettes in blue, purple, orange, and red. He'd taken a thin brush and stenciled in a dot here, a curl there, just beyond his eye. He'd taken a larger one across his nails in thick coats of mismatched colors. He'd curled the sides of his hair where they'd fallen out of his pony tail, and in the hair tie, he'd twisted a big, tie-dyed feather he'd found in a craft store. Beneath all the make-up and color, he'd hardly even recognized himself in the mirror.

"Eh. Just a bit of this and that." Kefka traipsed to the table and pulled back a chair so the legs screeched against the floor in a kind of metallic caterwaul. Kefka fell back against it with a soft "oof!", rest his cheek on his hand, and folded his new, green slipper onto his yellow-dyed pants.

"It's rude to stare, you know."

Leo gave him the kind of look he'd give a drunken moogle. The other three generals (_they'd die soon in the wars, but how did he know that…?)_ could have spit fire. Another chair scraped the floor. The Emperor placed his hands on the table's edge and stood, his beady eyes flashing beneath heavy white brows.

"What are you doing here, Palazzo?"

Once upon a time, the gravelly growl of the ruler of the largest empire would have sent Kefka groveling. "_I'm so sorry." "I must have misspoken." "Please, forgive me." _The Emperor had once held the dangerous majesty of a tiger, with his burning black eyes and elegant silver mane. He was the kind to lurk in the shadows and brood beneath rippling velvet coats until the time was right. He struck with merciless claws and had brought the continent to its knees.

Once upon a time, Kefka would have bowed to this man. But that time was long gone.

With the power of the espers at Kefka's fingertips, the Emperor now resembled nothing more than a giant, glittering beetle dressed up and playing pretend.

Kefka grinned.

"Didn't you want to see me? I thought that's what the messengers kept babbling."

"We are in the middle of something."

"Right, right. That's why I'm _here._" Kefka bit at the lacquer of his thumb and looked up at the shine of the ceiling tiles. "Being stuck doing nothing? It's _boring. _Having all this power. I just want to _use _it."

The Emperor's eyes narrowed into dangerous glints. "Get to the point, Palazzo."

"Jeesh. Impatient much?" Kefka examined his nail. He'd scratched a wet hole in the paint. "Give me an assignment."

"What?"

Leo stood, his hand still on his sword. "Your majesty, please. Kefka is still unstable. The procedure!"

"Oh, what are you? My mother?" Kefka crossed his armed and leaned back in his chair. "Come on! I can handle a few little rebel ants hiding in the floorboards."

"You haven't reported in nearly four months," the Emperor said, "Why should I entrust my armies to you?"

"You wanted me stronger than anyone, right? Well, here I am. All espered out! Isn't that what you wanted? Or was someone a little liar?"

"I will not allow this kind of talk!"

The room went quiet. The Emperor's eyes were burning, his lips hidden in a thin line beneath his beard. The guards at the door cautiously brought out their blades. There were whispers, muffled on muttered lips.

"_What is he doing?"_

"…_Dangerous…"_

"…_Crazy…"_

"…_Should be locked up."_

What was he doing here? The answer had left him some time ago. Why had he left the dark, lonely silence of his room? To come here. To hear them _whisper. _Always whispering! And that dark, murderous stare. It was the look of a monster. All sharp teeth and bloody claws. They'd needed him. They'd _changed_ him…

He laughed.

The whispers stopped. For thirty whole seconds, there were no sounds but his own harsh, bellowing laughter. It left him in thick, forceful waves and echoed on flat-paneled walls. It was so strong that his fists clenched against it. His eyes began to water, then run in muddled streams of red paint.

The magic burned inside him. His nails drew blood.

"Get him out of here!"

Someone grabbed his shoulder. He swiped at their grip and twisted to face them. Magic flared in his palm. Orange. Red. Yellow. Soldiers. They stumbled back, eyes wide and gaping. The fire danced on their cheeks in bloody shadows. Had he known them? Once, maybe? He couldn't tell. Not with that damn magic pounding on his brain.

"Don't touch me!"

No one moved. The fire crackled darkly.

_(…Kill them…)_

The magic spoke to him in heartbeats. The espers were mad. Mad they'd been used. Changed. Thrown away.

_(…Kill them all…)_

Gone were the days when he could feel. Stolen. And in return, he was…

"Albrook."

"Huh?"

The Emperor was watching him. He was unmoving, slightly tilted forward in interest. His fingers arced into the table. "You can take Albrook," he said again.

Kefka blinked, his hands still raised and full of fire. "I can…what?"

"We've struggled with the rebel base in that city for years. I want to see what you can do."

Kefka froze. The magic lashed and then dulled down to a deep, buzzing purr. He closed his fists and lowered his arms to the side. Then he grit his teeth, took a breath.

And laughed.

* * *

_Fire danced before his eyes. Fire in leaping, flashing bursts of power, burning to ash, dashing to cinders. It crackled above the voices. It hissed above the screams. Gone were the whispers. Gone were the sneering, laughing faces. Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone…_

"_Just shut up already!"_

"_I'll never give in to an imperial clown like you!"_

_And now there was fire. _

_Burning _

_burning_

_burning…_

"It was a mistake to send him back into the field! Palazzo is highly unstable! Nearly a dozen of the prisoners were killed by his actions!"

Clown…They thought he was a clown, did they? Ha…That was funny…

"Has there been any further rebellious activity in Albrook?"

"Well…No, but Emperor Geystahl…"

"Albrook has not been quiet in over three years. It seems he's made a rather powerful demonstration…"

"But Emperor Geystahl…"

Well, let them laugh. Let them all laugh harder! He didn't need anything from them. Nothing. Just to be left alone…

"Palazzo."

"…Eh?"

He was in a meeting room. There was the Emperor, up at the head of the table, looking at him like he'd done something wrong. Then there, standing dumb-founded, was that stupid, meddling, goody-two-shoes Leo. They were supposed to be punishing him for…something or another. He hadn't really been paying attention.

"There has been some rather troubling resistance activity in Tzen. I'd like you to go and…investigate."

"_What?_ But…Emperor…"

Kefka looked between them, one expectant, the other flabbergasted, and groaned.

"Again?"

"I feel that you have the proper skills for this job."

"Ugh…" He crossed his arms. "Stupid fucking rebels in their stupid fucking town…"

The Emperor smiled. Just a little. Just enough that Kefka wondered if he, too, was in on the joke.

* * *

_What's the fun of power if you can't abuse it?_

That's what it's there for, right? You get a little, eensy bit dangerous and suddenly people cower. "You want me to lick your boots? Sure thing!" "Run off and fight in your wars? Of course!"

"Let you poke and prod and play little scientist god?"

_What's an esper?_

Oh well, I'm sure it doesn't really matter, does it?

I'm sure this couldn't end badly_._

You do have _power _after all.

_What's the fun of power if you aren't abusing it?_

Using it to hurt people.

Take away their lives.

Let it burn to the ground.

A thousand screams in unison…

_(Oh god, why…?)_

* * *

It had been some time since Kefka had taken a stroll through the science department. Largely because he was no longer forced to, and more importantly because it was a dank, dark pit of rusted misery. He preferred his misery loud and warm, thank you. After his recent activity in Tzen, the Emperor had called for Kefka to be evaluated. Again. The heels of his boots clicked on cold iron floors and reverberated in the echoes of empty hallways. He let his eyes wander across the windowless walls to the mounted fluorescent lights and then to the closed and bolted doorways. It was here that he found something new. Color. He paused at the sight of it. Green. It trickled out the inch-wide slit of a cracked door and washed the floor in turquoise light. From inside, he could hear voices. One familiar and the other new.

"Do you feel any different today?"

"Not really. I'm a little cold."

"Can you focus it right now?"

"I don't know…"

Familiar.

Kefka kicked open the door. The room's two occupants jumped and there was a short, female scream. Kefka walked in as though he'd been invited.

"And what is this?" he asked.

The scientist took a step back. Cid. Was he scared? Kefka hoped so.

"Kefka! What are you-?"

Beside him was a girl, maybe five years old, set up on a medical table. With her big blue eyes and blonde curls, she was childhood glamor in a hospital gown.

"Who's _that?_" Kefka demanded. The girl stared at him like he was a monster come to murder her in the dark. Maybe she wasn't wrong.

"This is-…Kefka, you have no authority here! I'm going to have to ask you to leave!"

Pipes ran behind them, clear glass full of luminescent green. They bubbled in short bursts and whirred with the will of machines. He could feel power in them. Not electricity, but something more.

_A short shot of lightning, freezing veins, the grip on his brain like nails digging deep, screaming._

Magic.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Kefka said. The power flowed hot in his hand.

"I'm calling security," Cid said. He reached for a button on the wall. Kefka crossed the room in an instant and grabbed his wrist. Cid stumbled back away from him and tripped over the base of the table. Kefka pulled him closer.

"What are you doing? Or is there a reason you don't want me to know?"

His hand burned again, and Cid was screaming. His face bled into the colors. Sickly yellow beneath sparkling green. Screaming. Is that how Kefka had sounded in those colors? The room pulsed with heat.

"Don't hurt him!" A voice cried over the screaming, but fell silent on his ears. The air chilled and then something hit him. Kefka fell back and felt his fire cool and his skin prickle with cold.

Ice magic.

The girl had jumped from the table and stood with her arms outstretched. She stared at him fearfully as Cid slammed down the security alarm. A siren started somewhere in wailing, off-kilter tones. Cid's slid himself in front of the girl. His wrist was burnt red. He breathed in heavily and spoke through hissed teeth.

"Her name. Is Celes."

* * *

Kefka watched her step on stage. Celes Chere. _General _Celes. The youngest general in the history of the Empire. At seventeen, she had a two year advantage over that title's previous owner – him. She walked with her chin tilted to the sky and her hand on the hilt of her sword.

She thought she was so perfect. So _untouchable. _Just because the Emperor liked her. Just because she'd taken Maranda. He could have done that. After all, hadn't he squashed all the little resistance fighters like ants in Albrook? Hadn't he broken through the walls of Tzen and roasted their stupid king alive? It was Kefka, too, who had pulled that godawful desert castle under his thumb. They cowered whenever he appeared! They knew him, or of him, or had heard the whispered rumors that made them skitter away like mice before his boots. It was Kefka who had done all the Empire's work in the last decade. Not this little blonde nothing of a girl.

Celes Chere saluted and took her place to the Emperor's left side.

Kefka tried to explode her with his mind.

* * *

"My sweet little magic user…" His laugh reverberated on metal walls and metal floors. Alone. Here he was, all alone with his new little toy.

"With this slave crown, you'll be all mine."

It wasn't a crown, really. More of a metallic headband infused with charm magic linked directly to the brain. The name wasn't important. All that mattered was its power, and the fragile, weak-minded new toy in front of him.

The esper girl had stayed out of his sight, mostly. Hidden with that pathetic "scientist" since the raid on the Esper World years ago. An anomaly. A scientific advancement. She shrank away from him, her lips pale and her hands shaking. Her beads jangled on her wrist. Strands of green stuck to her forehead in wet rivulets.

Kefka placed the crown on her forehead. Its magic sparked hot beneath his fingers.

_(Wild, burning fire. The clamoring of metal and the cries of soldiers called before him and thrown away. Smoldering flesh and flaring cotton. The girl, hands out-stretched and eyes merciless. _

"_Good, good! Burn them all to a crisp!"_

_Power, power, all his, screaming at his command.)_

She blinked once, twice, then let out a low sigh. Her eyes glistened like shallow puddles. She stopped trembling. He could feel her body streaming beyond his consciousness. Magic stronger than any wave of Ifrit or Shiva. Something feral, snarling, and deadly. It was his now. His, his, all his until…

_(Fire, searing flesh and stone over burning sands. A dry, crackling heat that simmered through his make-up. They kept her from him. Stupid, scuttering insects. They panicked in circles to save their precious lives. Then there was that insipid king. Sweating now, disheveled. He looked to him with wild disdain._

"_What do you think you're doing?!"_

"_Bring me the girl! Now!")_

Familiar. So familiar. As her power sparked through him, Kefka caught something else lingering at the back of his mind, like the thoughts of some wandering spirit. Dread, or was it fear maybe?

He had seen this before.

_(Why couldn't they take her? There she was, small and shivering, ankle-deep in snow. What was her name again? Tellah? Tina? She stood among her hapless rebels and watched him through the icy malestrom. No crown. Just her magic and a piercing look of defiance as she stood in their way._

_Why couldn't they get past her? Why couldn't he crush them? Why why why why…?")_

It started here with his echoing laugh and that crown on her forehead. The wheels were turning. Gears ground in motion. Forward, steadily forward as the future flashed before him.

_A flash of violet. A snarling esper screeching across the sky._

_Luminescent crystals pulsing with power and the dying groans of the immortal._

_Traitors trapped in metal halls. Celes with her head bowed, golden curls hung over lowered eyes as she begged for forgiveness._

_A locked gate bursting with life. Vengeance bursting overhead on wings of the Magi._

_The bars of a steel cage. Gray, gray, so gray! Baited and imprisoned. He would pay, they said. Waiting, waiting, waiting…_

_Magic felled by his hand. Hundreds, thousands! Better than any girl. Their crystals dropped to the ground like rain. Blood soaked his hands. Leo's blood. _

_The flash of a blade. His body stung with silver. Blood, blood, so much blood. It welled from within him, gushing out over whitened hands. Past the green, yellow, purple, blue was red. Red and now the pain he'd seen a million times. It lightened his head. Blurred his vision. Blackness creeping, and cold. Hate hate hate hate hate hate hate._

_The power flashed once, twice. The earth roared with the wrath of the gods. Trembling. They surrounded him with their motionless faces, arms outstretched, eyes peering red vindication. Their power burned past him, through him. Everywhere. In that one screaming instant, he saw the world blue and cool and bursting in flames. He saw cliffs crumble, buildings crash, cracked earth and the withering of long grasses. It burned him. Bit by bit, he fried, sizzled, and decayed until he no longer watched, but _**was**. _He felt the pull of the currents, the turn of the moon, the scurrying of ants on the earth's surface. He was nowhere, but everywhere, high above the mortal world and existing in everything. It was then that he saw it - a glimpse of something far away. A light, he thought, or maybe something more. He tried to reach it. Farther and farther until he could grasp it in his hand._

_The truth._

This was where it all started. Silent echoes of a cold autumn night. Long before the world's destruction. There were no trees. Wind whistled through grates and cracked steel roofs. His jacket kept the cold at bay with cotton and padded wool. He sat perched on metal stairs. They chilled his legs and he wrapped his arms around them in the warmth of his sleeves. The city smelled of leather and oil. Footsteps clicked on steel grating.

"Kefka…"

He didn't raise his head. The voice did not belong to a superior. His forehead pressed deep into his knees.

The voice hesitated. Footsteps brought it closer, though it did not sit beside him.

"Kefka, I've been meaning to talk to you."

Kefka turned his head to eye a brown uniform and hard, military boots. "What do you want?"

There was silence between them and the howling of wind. The voice started once, but stopped and tried again. "You're not really…" it said, and then blurted, "You're not really going through with this?"

Kefka straightened. In the flickering lamplight, he caught darkened skin and blonde hair. Back then, Leo had been below him in rank. Always a few years younger, a few years behind. Upstanding, diligent, willing to prove himself. Kefka scowled.

"The Emperor requested it himself. Of course I am."

"But who knows what it could do? Giving magic to a human…?"

Kefka had always looked young. At nineteen, he was still smooth-faced, wide-eyed, and clean-cut. He'd worked harder than anyone to gain the Emperor's favor. Without parents, he had tried instead to impress the Emperor. It had never once worked. Not until now.

"I said I'd do it."

"But magic-...It isn't natural. Wasn't it magic that started the war? Why would they…?"

"It doesn't matter," Kefka said, "I'd die for the Empire. Wouldn't you?"

Leo hesitated. "Maybe," he said. In the quiet of Vector's balconies, Kefka could have sworn he heard something pounding deep within the city's core.

"You know the risks, so Kefka, why…?"

He didn't know. Was it for power, maybe? Or was it for attention? He tried to think, but the words muddled together in his head.

Ahead of him, there was fire, warfare, and the steadily creeping darkness spurned by questions without answers. One day, Kefka would hear the call of magic and the screams of eternity, but in that moment, there was only the night, and the night was still. He looked above to where the stars scattered the sky with twinkling pinpricks of life. Like a thousand eyes, they pered just out of reach with breathless expectation. The wind strengthened and Kefka shivered against the cold.

"It's what they want," he said. "The Empire's making progress. If this works, we could change the world."

One by one, they flickered and were extinguished.


End file.
